Piano Man
by NostalgicForNever
Summary: (Updates on this story are postponed for the time being due to another project. Sorry for the hold-up.)
1. Chapter 1

Piano man

Chapter 1

Scully slumped along the smooth porcelain edge, into the liquid warmth, feeling the water lap at the back of her neck. White foam bubbles flaked up across her vision, twirling purple and pink, stirred by her slow sinking. It all smelled of lavender.

Scully lowered her eyelids.

She was tired. The bath was for her muscles, but it was her mind that had taken strain. Nightmares—for the past five nights, each one identical: the painting of Ophelia, reenacted in the vivid colors only the imagination could conjure. The significance? Scully couldn't figure one; she only worried that maybe it was some symptom of neurological malfunction—mental exhaustion—her own body torturing her. Ophelia…. sinking into the water, like Scully herself was doing just then.

Scully closed her eyes.

 _She's dead._

Scully lurched up, gasping. She had forgotten herself and fallen asleep, swallowing bathwater in the process. She lunged over the porcelain edge and spat, coughing. Errand foam bits flew up and scattered about her.

* * *

Morning. Dawn at six AM—morning enough.

Scully closed and locked her door, moving toward the stairwell of her apartment building. It was her day off: a good time to go for a jog first thing. She walked out of the glass front entryway and picked up speed along the sidewalk. When the green of the park loomed into her view, Scully sprinted, muscles pumping—routine.

The rising sun cut through the branches of trees along her path, blinding her, painting everything in gold. No one was around. The chirrup of birds blared, high-pitched, congealing, squealing like a siren. Scully narrowed her eyes and ran forward with measured rhythm.

On her right, a lake opened up—a small park lake, glistening silver under the morning rays. She glanced at it sideways as she ran. It sparkled, offering nothing but more silence under the blare of the birds. The water was quiet… like the painting of Ophelia.

Scully turned away and faced ahead, sprinting, her muscles working, pumping through the exercise.

* * *

She walked back up the stairwell of her apartment building, rubbing sweat off the back of her neck, tossing her damp short hair. The lights of the hallway flickered as she walked up to her door. Scully drew out her key from the pocket of her running sweats, but when she thrust the metal thing into the slot, the knob lurched forward. It had already been opened.

Scully stepped in, tensing. A noise sounded in the nether of her apartment—a rustle of paper.

She dipped her hand back and un-clipped her gun out of its holster.

"It's me," Mulder's voice sounded from the living room, out of sight.

Scully relaxed and set the weapon on the kitchen counter.

"Just once," she said, as she opened the refrigerator door, "I wish you'd let me know you were stopping by."

"I called your phone," Mulder's voice rang, absent in its tone, the papers still rustling. "I didn't know you'd be out."

Scully withdrew a carton of orange juice. She pried the flap open and poured the vitamin-rich liquid into a glass.

"Why, what's up?" she asked, pressing the glass to her lips as she rounded the corner into the living room where Mulder had made himself quite comfortable—spread papers all over her coffee table and everything.

"It's this case—" He looked up and hesitated at the sight of her. "You're all sweaty."

Scully pulled the glass away, licking her lips, and studied the display on the coffee table. "I'm sorry," she said. "Was I supposed to get all dolled-up for your visit?"

It was a joke, and Mulder's shoulders relaxed with a laugh, until they both caught themselves remembering their last harrowing adventure.

He cleared his throat. "This case," he pointed at the papers on the tabletop. "Tell me what you think."

Scully neared him and frowned. "Mulder, these are… photocopies… of confidential files. Are we on this case?" It was her day off. The documents faced her—cheap replicas, the labor of a fax machine.

He shifted. "Not exactly. It's the new big-shot serial killer case in the Bureau."

"Mulder—"

"Skinner did ask me to look into it," Mulder defended himself. "He just meant me to profile the killer… But, look, Scully—it's got X-file written all over it."

She lowered onto the couch beside him and studied the photographs. They were almost indecipherable in copy form.

"Who'd you bribe to get these?" she asked, leafing through the stack.

"No one—Kenneth, the intern. And I didn't bribe him. I just asked him to demonstrate his skills as a secretary… Nice kid. Apparently, he's interning at the Bureau to plump up his application. He really wants a job as a TSA agent." Mulder bit his lip, waiting for her reaction to the file.

Scully sifted through the copied photographs, dust-bunnies plucking at the edges of the paper through the window dripping in sunlight. She squeezed the glass of orange juice between her thighs.

The photographs were of places, things, and then—

"Oh," she cried, and the juice spilled all over her sweats, staining her thighs in dark circles.

The glass tumbled to the floor.

"Shit," she cursed.

Mulder bent down to pluck up the glass, frowning. "What's up?"

Scully stared at the photograph—the copied photograph. It was of a young woman drowned, floating in a creek, exactly in the same fashion as… Ophelia in the painting—Ophelia in her nightmares.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"What is it?" Mulder frowned.

Scully stared at the image in her hand—the resemblance was undeniable: even the clutter of nature around the body reminded of the painting. The woman was drowned in a shallow creek, her light summer dress billowing on the water. Her hands—the wrists were turned up to mimic the figure in the artwork.

"I—just…" Scully sat back down on the couch beside Mulder, forgetting for a moment that her sweats were drenched with spilled orange juice. "I haven't been sleeping well lately. I can't seem to get more than a couple hours a night, and I…"

She set the crime scene photograph back down onto the stack, and pulled her hair back behind her ears. Mulder watched her, eyes focused, attentive.

"Well, do you know the painting _Ophelia_?" she asked him. "It was done by John Everett Millais."

He shook his head. "I'm not much of an art… enthusiast."

"Me neither. I saw a picture of it once, when I was young, in a book my mother had gotten as a gift, and I thought it was a pretty painting at the time, but it hadn't crossed my mind in years since. I only know the name of the artist because I looked it up two days ago. I went to the library and read all about it."

He nodded, confused still. "Why?"

"I haven't been sleeping because I've been having the same dream every night for almost a week now, and the dream was of that painting." Scully plucked up the photograph and thrust it at him. "Mulder, this crime scene looks just like _Ophelia_ : a woman in a shallow creek, out in the countryside, floating with her wrists turned up."

"You don't say," he let out a perplexed chuckle and zeroed in on the image.

"Mulder…" she narrowed her eyes. "If this is a high-profile case, someone on the task-force would have made that connection by now—immediately, probably. You don't seem to know anything about it. Are we supposed to be prying here?"

He cleared his throat. "It reads on paper like a standard serial murder case: the women were all young, between the ages of twenty-seven and thirty-two. They had a similar build, comparable features—as though they were selected by someone who has a type. Each woman had a history of either substance abuse or prolonged psychological counseling. None of them had ties to their families that they maintained on a regular, intimate basis—they were all vulnerable."

He was stalling—avoiding her question. "Mulder, what exactly did Skinner ask you to do for the case, and why don't you have the original file?"

He bit his lip, avoiding her direct gaze. "He asked me for a favor—a quick sum-up of a typical profile of the killer. You know, that run-of-the-mill, mid-to-late-thirties white male with an above average IQ type character description. I guess they've hit a wall with this, and can't find an out. They want to run local DNA samples, and a profile like that bumps them up, legally. I was supposed to be an outside expert impartial to the investigation—plump up their case for the judge."

"And? You don't think that it's a white male mid-to-late thirties?"

"Actually," Mulder shifted, rustling through the papers. "He is a white male. He's forty-two, but he definitely has an above average IQ." He held a photograph out toward Scully.

It was a mug-shot. The man stared at the lens with a crisp gaze, slightly pinched by the wrinkles around the corners of his eyes. Dark shoulder-length hair billowed about him with thick curls. The skin of his cheeks clutched a pronounced bone structure, catching shadows above a set of thin lips that seemed to be pulling back from a small smile.

"Who is he?" she asked.

"Maurice Lenaghan—a Julliard alumni. He had once composed four symphonies for a class assignment that only required a fragment of original melody. When he graduated, he was offered a multitude of lucrative posts in which to exercise his artistic genius. The faculty was enthralled with him, and called in favors, provided strong recommendations." Mulder plucked the photograph back out of Scully's fingers and ran his eyes over it again. "He refused everything, and spent the next two decades of his life ambling between towns, making his living playing the piano in old-fashioned bars."

"And you think he's the guy?"

Mulder nodded. "He has record of being in contact with each victim. Various bartenders offered witness accounts of seeing him speaking to the women after his performances—his small-paying gigs. The bodies only appearred in towns he had moved to—no incidents prior to his presence, though some after his absence."

"Wait," she frowned. "After his absence? What are you saying—that he drove back for a night?"

"No, I—" Mulder glanced at her, readying it seemed for the wall of logic that was Scully.

"I think he's the killer, but I don't think he's doing the act in the… conventional sense."

"Mulder…" She tensed, herself readying for the fantastic—illogical angle Mulder always favored. The relocation matching the body count, and the witness accounts of the man in contact with the victims was certainly a red flag, but— "What did Skinner say exactly when you suggested Maurice Lenaghan?"

"They, um," he shifted. "They'd already dismissed him."

"Because…?"

"He was perfect in questioning—very accommodating, and he… had an alibi for each case. He," Mulder cleared his throat again, "was playing the piano when each victim was seen leaving the bar—alive. And he was still playing the piano, when the woman turned up several hours later, dead."

"Mulder!" Scully let out an exasperated sigh, and tossed the few photo-copied pictures she had picked up back onto her coffee table. "Then he's not the guy." She stood, remembering that her sweats were drenched. "I have to change—and take a shower. Mulder, this is my day off."

"He's the guy, Scully," he called after her as she walked away toward her bedroom.

"So, that's the reason for the illegal paperwork you've brought into my apartment?" she called from her bedroom as she scrunched out of her running gear. "Skinner took back his request when you wouldn't play ball and say it was a different white male with an above average IQ?"

"Technically," he cried back. "Yes."

She sighed and unclipped her bra. "I'm taking a shower, Mulder. I have to run some errands later, too." She meant that as a final note to their conversation.

"Okay," he called, rustling through the papers, his tone distracted. "Do you still buy those little yogurts that have fruit at the bottom?"

A smile jerked at the corner of her lip, despite herself. "Yeah," she said. "Help yourself." She stepped onto the bathroom tile, and hesitated. "Leave me one at least, this time," she called, and closed the door.

She turned the knobs and stepped into the sharp, hot beat of the spray. The shower head pulsed, gushing water with a scent that was unique to DC—a lingering metallic scent that seemed to work hard to mask the dank swamps that were around them, outside of the city. Scully hated that part of living by Virginia. She'd taken plenty of motel showers across every state in the nation, and in DC, the water always smelled like it was lying—covering something up.

It ran clean, though, pumping fast against her shoulders with its pressure. She lathered the shampoo through her hair—a new, more expensive, brand the check-out girl convinced her to purchase. The shampoo was drenched with lavender. The sweetness of the smell was thick. Scully felt it permeate the steaming bathroom; it was calming, just as the small-name label promised.

Scully turned the knob and stood for a moment under the gush of cool, letting the pink of her skin subside back to pale goose-bumps.

She climbed out, toweled off, and stepped back into her bedroom. She pulled on a silk bathrobe, and walked back to the living room, thinking that Mulder had left. She was tussling her wet hair, and drying her ears with the terry-cloth towel in her hands, when she faced him on her couch, mouth full of yogurt.

"So, I'm thinking," he perked up, swallowing fast. "Since you're off anyway, we could go get a read on the guy."

He spoke like there had been no interruption in their earlier conversation.

Her shoulders slumped. "Mulder," she groaned. "It's my day off—I have errands."

He bit his lip, running his eyes over her, gaging her. He would win, she knew. Mulder always won the debate of whether or not to bother with a fantastic hunch.

"It wouldn't take long—just one trip."

Scully brushed back a wet strand that fell across her forehead. "The Bureau won't approve flight tickets on this."

"That's the beauty of it," he beamed. "It's not far—Maurice Lenaghan is bunking it out in Canfield, West Virginia, as of the past seven months." He gave her his best irresistible smile. "We can drive."

She shifted, thinking about everything she would have to postpone.

"Scully," he urged. "You said yourself that the photo struck you odd—that you've been dreaming about that painting. Don't you think that's at least a sign?"

She studied him. Mulder was eager as always, on the edge of his seat. She bit her lip. "Why do you want me to come anyway?"

"Why do I—" he frowned. "Scully…" he chuckled, still frowning.

"Alright," she sighed. "Okay."

"Great," he lurched up, gathering his photocopied file. "Get dressed."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

* * *

Mulder looked up when she walked back out in a pair of jeans and a dark navy t-shirt.

"That's what you're wearing?" he asked, still collecting the bits of file he was able to obtain into a neat stack.

She faltered. "Why? You're in jeans. I thought this was off the clock."

"You don't have something, um…" He waved a hand at his own t-shirt. "More low-cut?"

"Excuse me?" Scully's eyebrows shot up. "Mulder, please tell me I misheard you."

"It's just that—well, Maurice Lenaghan works piano bars… you know—late crowd…" He bit his lip under her chilly gaze. "I was just hoping you could get a one-on-one conversation with him—you know, like a bar pick-up type conversation."

"Oh, is that my role in this?" Her voice arched, catching an edge. "I'm fine with what I have on, Mulder."

"Yes, but—"

"I have something low-cut and sexy you can wear, if you want to go ahead and do this on your own."

"Alright, alright!" He lifted up his hands. "I'm sorry. Let's just go. Your car or mine?"

"Mine." She ducked into the kitchen and filled up a bottle from the tap. "I just had it checked, and the mechanic said it runs 'like mascara on a soap actress.'" She chuckled. "He's kind of an oddball."

They walked down the stairwell, and out into the lot. Around them, the late-May weather showed off its best colors: a crisp breeze plucking at flowering petals, and a clear, cloudless blue sky. The car had warmed up under the full-fledged rays of the morning, and Mulder opened the driver's side door, leaning in to adjust Scully's seat back, to accommodate his frame. She hopped into the passenger's side and busied with the tapes in her console, choosing the music for the drive.

They pulled out through thick traffic that broke apart when Georgetown fell away behind them.

"Stop at a gas-station before we get on the interstate," she said. "We should get a couple more bottles of water."

Mulder glanced at her sideways. Since their unfortunate experience in Ohio, Scully had become especially paranoid about having water and snacks in the car at all times. There were some things that needed to be voiced about their encounter with the Dollhouse, but Scully hadn't offered anything in casual conversation, and Mulder didn't push. That was just the nature of how things passed between them; he knew to wait for the eventual voice of the self—the vulnerable, more real self—Scully strived to keep down, and he knew that when she did speak about it again, it would be because she needed some shred of logic from him, her myth-embracing partner of all people—something to comfort the anxiety brought on by the rattled science of her world. Scully spoke about her feelings on her terms, when she was ready… after a safe amount of time had passed.

"I'll pull over at the next one I see," he said.

Scully leaned over and turned up the music on the radio.

* * *

It was a five hour drive. The agents spent large stretches of it in comfortable silence, letting the rush of the highway, and the music on the tape-deck, cushion their individual surrender to introspection.

Scully leafed through the file Mulder had gathered, reading the few documents he could get his hands on between the pictures. Most were short background bios of the victims. A record of the interview with Maurice Lenaghan was in the ranks, and she found herself siding with the FBI's dismissal of the man: he seemed very accommodating to the investigation, open and informative about his contact with the victims, and completely innocent of any crime.

"Where are…" She sifted through the stack in her hands. "You couldn't get anything medical? Autopsies?"

Mulder cracked a sunflower seed between his teeth, and shook his head. "Just the cosmetics. The intern caught on to my angle, I think, when I asked for more. He mumbled something about a HIPPA violation, and ran off to look up Skinner's number."

She studied the photograph that most resembled _Ophelia_. "This creek is so shallow… a child would have trouble drowning in it. What had Skinner told you when he first sought out your profile? About the cause of death, I mean."

"He said the details of the case had to be kept away from me in order for me to legally be brought in as an experienced profiler… and he said the women had no sign of physical assault, drug overdose, or systematic failure of any kind."

"And?" she asked when Mulder paused, scratching his chin. "How did they die exactly?"

"That was when he became tense and uncomfortable. I guess the problem is that whatever medical records they collected made the cause of death a senseless toss-up. He did mention that the mother of one of the victims is throwing a picketing fit—screaming incompetence on the government's justice system. She's… very influential, so they have their asses against a wall, now. That's all I got."

Scully huffed, re-rustling through the photographs. "Why doesn't he just bring us in on the case? If I could at least read the autopsy reports—"

"Skinner, um," Mulder glanced at her, and bit down on another sunflower seed. "I think he's afraid that our particular department, and all the gossip that drench the X-Files, will damage the FBI's image in their response to the mother's concerns."

Scully looked up at him, frowning. "What?"

"He doesn't want to embarrass the Bureau." Mulder said in a flat voice. "When he handed me the report to fill out, I was labeled as an Oxford graduate experienced with profiling serial murderers. The X-files, and all my—our—work since those days, was neatly left out of the document."

"Ah…" She slunk back into her seat, and set the folder back into her lap as she stared at the rushing stretches of America beyond the ribbon of the highway. "What do you think it is?" she asked Mulder, after a while.

"Hm?"

"The cause of death?"

He shrugged. "That was always your talent… I just know how to profile. And I know he's the guy, Scully."

"Maurice Lenaghan." She nodded. "…Why?"

"It just fits."

* * *

It was just past three-thirty in the afternoon, when the agents found the bar. Mulder had done his own research. What Skinner omitted from his brief, Mulder had either pieced together on his own, or gathered over numerous phone calls to local establishments.

"'Piano Man?' he yells at me," he told Scully, chuckling. "'Yeah, he's got a regular gig here. Ticket's ten bucks.'" Mulder mimicked the jarring country accent to perfection. "I think Lenaghan actually goes by the hang of 'Piano Man,' at least out here in West Virginia."

She squinted against the light pouring into the windshield along a long, windowless building.

"Mulder, this doesn't look like a fancy piano bar…"

" _Arnold's_." he nodded. "I checked up on it. It used to be a strip club before they remodeled."

" _Arnold's?_ That's an odd name—"

"For a strip joint?" he chuckled. "Yeah, I know. I thought it funny, too."

The building was on a stretch of road with no businesses close around. A rickety gas station lay a quarter mile behind them, and a gated housing development, flashing identical new green roofs, glistened several miles down the road.

"I think it was a town meeting," Mulder pointed toward the development, "that forced _Arnold's_ to remodel into a more appropriate venue."

Scully studied the building. "They're closed, though, still. Mulder, when does the show start exact—"

"Shh, look." He brushed his fingers against her knee, quieting her as they ducked back against their seats, out of sight from another visitor.

A blue pick-up lurched off the road, into the lot of Arnold's, and scrunched against the gravel all the way up to the entrance. A man jumped out of the driver's side. He moved athletically, lithely, muscles springing. Scully first gaged him to be someone that worked a physically-straining job. The arms under his worn t-shirt were tanned from the sun, his jeans dirtied by constant wear. It was when she registered his pony-tail, that she remembered the shoulder length curls on Maurice Lenaghan's mug shot. She didn't catch his face as he disappeared into the bar.

"That's him," Mulder said.

"So, what now?"

Mulder frowned at the building. They were parked in the shadow of a tree.

"Go in," he nudged her.

"And say what?"

"Say you have to use the restroom, or something. See if you can talk to him."

Scully rubbed her arm. "Mulder—what do you want out of this exactly? Why don't we circle back when there's a crowd."

He bit his lip. "No, go in now. You're dressed as someone traveling—you've got a good angle for a one-on-one."

Scully sighed. "Fine," she unlocked the car door.

She climbed out into the beating sunlight and walked toward the door of the establishment.

It opened into a darkness—a pre-show stillness of a bar that wasn't open to customers yet. She waited for her eyes to adjust. In the far corner, she saw the man—Maurice Lenaghan—finagling with a piano. He struck a tuning fork, listening, as he dipped a finger onto a key.

The door closed behind her, clapping shut, and the man cursed.

"Jim, I said no noise when I tune," he yelled without bothering to turn.

A bearded man emerged into the aisle behind the bar and blinked at Scully.

"Bar's not open yet, Miss."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I was hoping to use the restroom—I've been driving a long while."

In the corner, Maurice Lenaghan paused and turned to the sound of her voice. His pony-tail curls caught the glint of the little sunlight that managed into the bare space. His eyes, caught that glint, too.

"I can wait," he said quietly to the man behind the bar top.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"Bathrooms are right back there, Miss," the bar owner pointed.

"Thank you." Scully bit her lip and walked toward the far end of the dark space.

She could feel Lenaghan's eyes trace her movement. How did Mulder expect her to strike up any kind of small-talk? The silence was thick around them. She slipped into the bathroom, thinking. Her reflection looked back at her; her eyes were a bit sunken in, faint shadows coloring the lower lids—an unfortunate side-effect of her recent sleep-deprivation.

She reached over, flushed the toilet, and washed her hands, lathering soap between her fingers as it ran through the gush of the stream. When she was done, she splashed cool water to her face. It was pleasant, though it was laced with that scent unique to the Virginias. Scully patted her forehead and cheeks with a paper towel, and stepped back out into the dim bar hall.

The men looked up. The bar's owner glanced at her briefly, busy with the chore of wiping down the surfaces his patrons would soon stain with spilled whiskey and cigarette ash. Lenaghan, on the other hand, fixed Scully with a direct, unabashed stare. She walked past him and hesitated, turning. His eyes never wavered from her face—crisp, gray eyes, pinched slightly in the corners by small wrinkles. Just like in his mug shot, he seemed to be pulling back a small smile.

Scully cleared her throat. "This seems like an odd venue for a grand piano," she said, just to start something with Lenaghan.

"We do piano shows now," the bar owner called in a gruff way, without turning around. It slipped out of him like a practiced statement; he must have had to explain the bar's redirection over and over to his customers when _Arnold's_ stopped being a strip joint. He almost said 'god damn it,' but caught himself, and the curse slipped out in a low mutter. Business had probably suffered some when the strippers were let go and the poles removed.

Lenaghan didn't even turn to the sound of the man's voice. "I play the piano," he said, his eyes never moving from Scully. His own voice was quiet, soft, like the shirk of a velvet hem along carpet—a sound she would miss in a crowded room. It unnerved Scully; the sound prickled her spine, though she couldn't gage why.

She urged the feeling down, thinking of something else to say to keep him engaged. "Oh, really? I'm in town for the evening. Are you playing tonight?"

Lenaghan nodded, still with that small smile. "You should stop by. Do you like classical music, or more the popular culture varieties?"

She shifted. Was there a correct answer here? Lenaghan was Julliard alumni who'd refused Carnegie Hall. "Both, I suppose."

"Ticket's fifteen dollars," the man hollered from behind the bar, clinking glasses.

"Free for my guest, Jim," Lenaghan said. Even when he spoke across a room, his voice slithered soft, low-pitched.

It was good enough—she had done enough recon. She nodded, trying to keep a friendly smile and not show him how his voice unsettled her. "I'll stop by. When does it start?"

"Seven," Jim answered for Lenaghan again. "Come a bit earlier, sweetheart. We've got a two-for-one happy hour running four-to-seven."

Scully nodded, glanced at Lenaghan, and walked out of the bar.

Mulder perked up when he saw her near the car through the sun-beaten lot. He was camouflaged by the shadow of the tree behind the curb.

"Well?" he asked when she slipped into the passenger's seat.

"I talked to him," she said. "He asked me to come listen to his show at seven."

"And? What kind of read did you get on the guy?"

She glanced at him sideways. "I'm not sure… Mulder, do you know how sometimes people smile—a small smile—like something's funny that you're not in on?"

He nodded. "Like they think they're smarter than you. That's how men with above average IQ smile when they've gotten away with murder."

She frowned. "Mulder, don't you think that you're bending a speculation to fit your theory?"

"Was that not how you felt about Maurice Lenaghan?"

She bit her lip. "Let's just swing back around at seven."

He revved the engine and pulled out of the lot of _Arnold's._ The long windowless building flashed in their rearview.

* * *

They grabbed lunch at a road-stop diner—a nostalgic, private-owned business that reminded of the fifties' era malt shops, though it smudged that memory with thick, greasy air, chipped linoleum, and the sound of Merengue blaring from the narrow kitchen window. The bell on the door tinged when the agents stepped in, and a young girl with a frizz of bleached curls looked up from the paper, blowing a pink bubble-gum bubble.

"Y'all want a booth or a table?" she asked when the bubble popped.

"Booth," they answered in unison.

The leather crackled under them as they slid in across from each other. Scully glanced down at a sputter of yellow foam bursting out of a short split at one end of her cushion.

"What are y'all having to drink?" The girl slapped the menus down, chewing.

"Coffee," they said in unison again.

"Aw," she grinned, pinching the gum between her teeth. "That's cute how y'all say the same thing every time."

Scully glanced at Mulder, feeling a blush. He only chuckled and flapped the menu open.

"'Heart-Attack Special,'" he read as the waitress walked off. "That sounds like good meal."

She cleared her throat and zeroed in on her choices, but couldn't focus.

"Mulder, what exactly do you want me to do here?"

"Hm?" He looked up over the fold. "Is the food—we can look for another place."

"I meant with Lenaghan." She folded the menu away. "What is it that you want me to get out of him? A confession?" Her voice dipped, catching her frustration: the man wasn't the guy by all logical means; she agreed with FBI's reported dismissal—he had an alibi, a strong alibi.

Mulder shook his head. "Just a better read, Scully. I'm banking on that feminine intuition of yours—and you have an in now. He invited you to his show; he will want to talk to you after."

She brushed back a strand of hair behind her ear. "Mulder, he just…" She bit her lip. "I don't think he's the guy, but he… gave me the creeps—I'm sorry. It was just the way he kept looking at me—his stare."

Mulder glanced up, shocked it seemed. "Scully… I thought that, with your medical background especially, you'd be sympathetic."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

"His blindness."

"What?"

"His blindness…"

"What?" She shot up. "He's not blind."

Mulder faltered. "Maurice Lenaghan is blind. I told you that."

"What?" The memory of the man's eyes washed over her. They were crisp, direct—attentive. "No, you most certainly never said that he was blind."

Mulder frowned. "Skinner mentioned it, in between his fair speech as to why we can't directly be brought on the case. I told you about that."

"No," Scully shook her head. "You never told me he was blind."

The waitress circled back and dropped off their coffee.

"Y'all ready to order?"

Mulder handed her back the menu. "Cobb salad. Dressing on the side. And could I please get a creamer for the coffee?"

"Miss?" she turned to Scully.

"The—the same."

The girl chuckled. "So cute."

Scully narrowed her eyes at Mulder when the waitress left. "You picked that salad because you knew that's what I would have chosen."

He flicked a sugar packet over his coffee. "I know you."

Scully found her gaze running down his cheek as he turned away toward the window. She could feel her body giving into the strain of not sleeping well for days.

"Just get a read on the guy, Scully," Mulder said. "If you tell me he's innocent, I'll drop it right here, and won't bring it up ever again."

"He can't be blind," she said. "He looked at me—I mean he _looked_ at me."

Mulder set the paper of the sugar packet against his mug.

"Scully, Maurice Lenaghan is blind—has been for a while."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"Mulder, he _drove_. How could he be blind if he drives?"

He glanced back at her, his frown deepening. "What do you mean he drove?"

Scully leaned her head to her hand, pressing her fingertips to her temple. The strain—sleeping just a few hours a night—was taking a high toll. Her back ached. She felt dizzy.

"When we were in the lot by _Arnold's_ ," she insisted, "we saw him pull up in a blue pick-up."

He nodded. "He was in the passenger's seat."

"No," she shook her head. "No. He got out on the driver's side. Mulder—I have clear memory of that. It just happened. We just saw him. He was driving."

Mulder paused, glancing her over. "Scully, are you alright? You look very pale."

"I'm…" she rubbed her eyes. "I'm just so tired."

He shifted. "Do you want to leave?"

"No, it's fine. It's just not being able to sleep lately—it's…" She took a small sip of coffee. "It's fine."

Mulder watched her, quiet, his eyes darting over her face, concerned. "Scully," he said after a minute, "Lenaghan got out on the passenger's side. The driver stayed in the truck—a man with short black hair—don't you remember?"

She swallowed. She scoured her brain; she knew what she saw—there was no mistake on her part.

Around them, the diner bustled with the laborious smells of fresh coffee and old grease, and the peppy bounce of Merengue music in the kitchen. Scully pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes.

"Mulder, you're making me feel like I'm losing my mind here…"

The sounds dipped away, fading for a moment like she had slipped into a tunnel.

"Scully…?"

"There you go!" The waitress's voice rang faint, like it was a mile away. "Let me know if you need extra dressing… Is everything alright?"

"Could we get a glass of orange juice, please?" Mulder, too, sounded far… far away.

Scully heard her own heartbeat—a slow rhythmic pulse in her ears. It pounded like a metronome, pulling her away, urging her to surrender to the descending darkness.

"Scully…"

Warm fingers slipped along her arm. She gasped and opened her eyes. The blare of Merengue fled back with stark, bouncing clarity.

"Muld—" She turned to him. He had moved around to sit beside her. He was inches from her now, staring at her with deep worry.

The waitress set a glass of orange juice in front of Scully. The girl looked concerned, too.

"Do y'all need me to call an ambulance or something?" She looked Scully over.

Scully shook her head.

"You look very pale, Miss. Saint E's hospital is just down the road—"

"I'm fine," Scully shook her head again. "Thank you."

The girl glanced at Mulder.

"She's just a little tired," he said.

The waitress walked away.

"Do you need to lie down?" He turned back to her.

He was close, warm. His fingers on Scully's arm hadn't moved. She bit her lip. Blood rushed through her from his closeness, pumping energy back into her body—an adrenaline rush Mulder's presence gave her from time to time.

"I'm fine," she said again, avoiding his eyes. She picked up the glass of orange juice and drank slowly.

* * *

Mulder did insist that she lie down. After they left the diner, he sought out a roadside motel, and all but tucked Scully into bed.

She lay now on the low thread-count comforter, staring at the plaster ceiling.

Sleep—even a nap she very much needed—just wouldn't come.

He tapped on her door and leaned in. She turned and looked at him, the pillow scratching her cheek.

"Are you awake?"

"Yes." _Unfortunately_ she wanted to add, but didn't want him to worry.

She sat up as he walked into the room. He sat down on the bed beside her without ceremonies. Again—the closeness of him. Scully looked away so that he wouldn't read the blush on her.

"So," he said. "You want to go listen to some Julliard quality piano playing?"

She nodded, still not looking at him

* * *

The bar was packed. Scully squinted in the smoky haze, registering the figures of men and women sitting at tables, crowding the bar top, chatting, laughing, ashing their cigarettes, and clinking glasses. Mulder sent her in alone, saying he'd follow in ten minutes. His idea was that they shouldn't be seen together in case Lenaghan's aide informed him she was there with another man. Lenaghan himself, Mulder still insisted, was blind. She still didn't believe it.

Scully searched the crowd for the tall, gaunt figure of the star of the show. His bench by the grand piano was empty. She couldn't spot him in the swirl of moving, chatting bodies, so she nudged her way to the bar.

A large man sitting on one of the stools turned when Scully accidentally grazed his arm.

"Excuse me," he apologized in an instant, confusing her, and climbed off his seat. "All yours, Miss." He brushed off the red leather cushion.

"Oh," she shook her head, "you don't need to—"

"A pretty thing like you shouldn't have to stand." The man gave her a good-natured grin. "Can I buy you a drink?"

"Um," she shifted, trying to figure how to refuse the offer without sounding impolite.

"Easy, Barry," Jim, the bar's owner, walked up. "Quit spooking my gentler clientele."

Barry chuckled, winked at Scully, and wandered off.

"Nice to see you again, Miss," Jim nodded. "What's your pleasure?"

She glanced up at the multitude of bottles sparkling behind the bearded man. Their multicolored glass glittered under the neon of track lighting. Jim had the poles removed, but the rest of the place still looked very much like a seedy strip-joint.

"Vodka tonic, please," she said. She planned to nurse that drink for the remainder of the evening; she didn't want to become intoxicated. One drink, for the looks of belonging to this crowd, was more than enough.

Jim nodded and moved away to accommodate.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," a young cheery voice crackled over a microphone, "if you are feeling comfortable and relaxed, a little tipsy, and on cloud nine, we are ready to begin with our night's entertainment."

Scully glanced at the speakers hanging in different spots under the ceiling. She couldn't help thinking that voice used to blare announcements like 'And up next we have Chandelle dancing for your pleasure to her favorite Def Leopard hit – Pour Some Sugar On Me.'

The crowd quieted, turning to the piano. The front door popped open, and Scully saw Mulder slip in, mixing into the ranks with practiced stealth. Jim set her drink on the counter and shook his head when she reached into her pocket for cash. He tapped the bar top with a thick finger, indicating 'on the house.'

A light above the piano flashed on. The crowd fell dead still. It surprised Scully that this seemingly rowdy bunch would be so attentive, so respectful of a piano performance. She had expected the sort of scene where the music, despite coming from a man educated in the highest of faculties, was tragically lost in the background, misunderstood and unappreciated by a gather of alcoholics at their watering hole. Instead, every face focused on the instrument, silent, rapt. Even the cigarettes were swiftly put out, and the drinks set down.

Maurice Lenaghan walked out of the back and into the spotlight over the piano.

He hadn't changed his outfit—he still wore the raggedy clothes that made him seem like an off-the-books laborer who'd just made his day's hundred bucks putting up drywall. He'd let his hair out of its pony-tail; it billowed about him now, glittering in the harsh light with stray grays. Scully studied his movements, still convinced there was some mistake to Mulder's proclamation about his sight, but she noted, to her dismay, that Lenaghan moved facing straight-forward, grazing his fingertips along surfaces as he walked. He rounded the piano, fingers slipping along its black maple edge, and lowered onto the bench.

No sheet music.

The crowd held still, holding their breath. The silence was almost deafening. No one so much as moved a muscle.

Lenaghan rolled his shoulders, tossed back his mane of hair, flexed his fingers over the keys, held them there for a brief moment, and then—

It was so beautiful.

It was exquisite. Scully knew so little of classical music, but the sound that washed through the bar—the melody—plucked her heart like it was a taut string. She heard soft sighs through the crowd. A few women leaned back, closing their eyes, their drinks forgotten. The men ran their hands across their foreheads. Hard men, men of thick fiber and low-down, raunchy humor, stared at the source of the music with expressions white-washed in wonder, child-like, and soft with bewildered remorse in the face of delicate beauty.

Lenaghan played for an hour, and no one moved an inch. Scully herself could barely look away. She found herself trembling, and was terrified that her hand would let go and drop her glass to the floor, disrupting the melody. She wrapped her fingers tighter around her drink.

The last movement neared its end; Lenaghan ran his fingers along the keys, facing ever forward. The melody arched, stretched, and sighed like a living, breathing entity. He struck the final note and removed his hands from the instrument.

A groan exhaled from the audience—a groan of pleasure and longing. They sat up, held still for a breath, and burst into a thunder of applause.

Lenaghan stood, turned with his eyes still fixed dead ahead, and bowed.

"And now, for the first of our intermissions," the announcer blared from the speakers, "We urge you all to replenish your drinks, revisit your baser habits, and of course, relax, enjoy, get to know one another. It's a twenty minute break, folks."

Scully gripped her drink as the condensation threatened to finally slip through her palm. She raised it up, took a short sip, and glanced back to see where Mulder had settled. He was at the far end of the bar. He saw her see him, and pulled his gaze off, glancing at Lenaghan.

Scully turned and almost gasped, seeing the piano player right in front of her.

"I'm so glad you game," Lenaghan said, his voice just as soft as before—so soft, Scully was surprised she could hear him in the clinking, chatting bustle that had resumed throughout the crowd. "Did you enjoy the piece?"

"Very much," she nodded. "I'm not familiar with classical music. Whose composition was that?"

"Mine," he said simply. "An old ditty, as they say—something I wrote when I was still a kid in school."

"Oh." She couldn't help feeling dwarfed by that easy comment—the clear presence of a genius, who'd labeled his siren song which had stilled a bar crowd into breathless surrender a 'ditty'.

She glanced between his stark gray eyes. It baffled her, but it seemed like Lenaghan was looking right at her, _seeing_ her.

"We haven't managed any proper introductions," his voice slithered as he stretched his hand. "Maurice."

"Dana," she said, taking his hand, and catching the fire of jealous eyes in the background, as some of the women huddled, watching them and whispering to one another.

Immediately around them, the crowd had cleared. The people inched away, giving them space, and pointedly talking to each other and focusing on their cigarettes.

"You sure know how to manage your audience," Scully said. It slipped out of her.

Lenaghan chuckled—a low rasping sound like the rush of insect wings. It unnerved her so much, his voice, and she couldn't tell why, so she strived to push the unpleasantness down.

"May I ask you a personal question, Dana?"

She nodded, swallowing, unsure of what that would entail. She realized right then that if he was blind, he wouldn't be able to see her nod, but Lenaghan spoke like he'd read her movement with clear vision.

"Have you been having trouble sleeping?"

"What?" she breathed, caught off-guard by how personal that fact actually was.

"You seem," he said, his tone careful, "like you've been having trouble sleeping. Is that true? Or is it just that you've been traveling?"

Scully glanced around. In the ruckus that had resumed throughout the bar, her conversation with the piano-player was tucked into a bubble—private and inaudible to outside ears. Even the jealous women watching her were far out of ear-shot. She couldn't see Mulder anymore; he'd moved from his earlier spot.

"Yes," she turned back to Lenaghan, opting for the honest approach. "I actually haven't been able to sleep as of… about a week now."

He nodded, the small smile playing across his features as ever. The blue reflection of the track-lighting on the bottles behind her caught his gaunt cheeks with a stark contrast; he looked almost skeletal in frame. His gray eyes didn't waver from her, and she could swear—she would have sworn on her life—that they looked right at her, seeing everything.

"If you're interested," he said, "I'm in the business of selling sleep."

Scully frowned, an involuntary chuckle escaping her as her nerves prickled with a spasm; she was too exhausted for this much tension. "Is that… is that some sort of euphemism?"

He stretched his smile a little wider and shook his head. "No, in the most literal way you can imagine."

"You sell sleep?"

He nodded.

The logic of her medical background revved. "If this is about some drug—Trazodone, or Zolpidem, or whatever you've got your hands on, I'm not interested," she said, her voice growing harsh. She felt angry; the tension was upsetting her, as was the fact that she couldn't spot Mulder in the bustling crowd, not through the curtains of smoke that laced the bar.

Lenaghan chuckled again. "No. Not drugs, Dana. Dreams."

She inched away from him. This was quickly becoming an uncomfortable conversation for her—not because she was unfamiliar with seedy behavior in seedy joints, but because hearing his voice felt like it was crawling up her spine.

"I think you've picked out the wrong customer," she said.

He studied her— _studied_ her out of a pair of gray eyes that were purported to be blind.

"You admitted to having trouble sleeping," he said.

Scully sighed, glancing around still for Mulder. At this point, she was hoping Jim, or even the man—Barry would walk by and interrupt. She felt trapped by the pin of the eyes that weren't supposed to see. No one moved toward them, though. Scully and the piano-player remained in their private bubble.

Lenaghan reached into his pocket and drew out—a coin. It looked like a coin, but when he held it out to Scully, she thought it resembled an old subway token.

"First one's always on the house," he said.

"What?" she frowned, not moving at all to take the thing.

The blue glint of the bar played up his hollow cheeks as Lenaghan smiled—a full grin this time, and one that was just as furtive as his short smirk.

"Put it under your pillow before you go to bed," he said. The phrase came out like a bizarre mimic of an instruction from a mother of a child who'd lost their first tooth. "If you like how you sleep, you can come to me again."

Scully stared at him.

He stretched the token toward her.

At least this was something she could show Mulder when she described this bizarre encounter to him, she decided.

She took the token from Lenaghan's fingers and slipped it into her pocket.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

She didn't stay for the next installment of the performance. Despite Lenaghan's superb talent, she'd had enough; the man gave her the worst kind of feeling—a fearful disgust that she could base on nothing but her intuition.

Scully set her barely-touched drink down and slipped out between the crowd as they resettled around the piano. She crossed the parking lot and climbed into her car. Once in, she exhaled a long breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. The last lingering rays of May's late sunset washed over the sky, their maroon and magenta shreds reflecting on the silent tops of cars crowding the lot. Scully rolled her window down and waited for Mulder to realize she'd left the bar.

Her eyes fell on Lenaghan's blue pick-up across the lot. A man with short black hair sat in the driver's seat. He held his hand out of the window, ashing his cigarette. Scully frowned… Mulder was right: Lenaghan had a driver. How did she misremember such an obvious fact? In her mind, the memory was still clear: Lenaghan hopping out of the driver's side.

Mulder walked out of the bar and crossed the lot toward Scully.

"You didn't want to stay for the whole show?" he asked when he got in. "I have to say, I was very impressed with him as a musician."

She swallowed, staring out the window. The piece really was beautiful, when considered apart from the artist.

Mulder paused, watching her. "So, what did he say to you?"

"He, um… said that he's in the business of selling sleep." She faced Mulder.

"What?" he chuckled uncertainly. "Is that some kind of euphemism?"

She shrugged. "He said he sells sleep."

"How—drugs?"

She stretched the token Lenaghan had given her toward Mulder. "Apparently, all I have to do is put this under my pillow."

He studied the trinket. "This is…pewter, or tin." He rolled it between his fingers. "It's cheap. There's an inscription here, but it's mostly rubbed off."

"Can you read any of it?" She leaned to peer at the coin.

He shook his head. "'Chucky-Cheese?'"

She rolled her eyes and looked back out the window.

"Well," he said, "at least now you can't have any doubt that he's the guy."

"How do you figure?"

"Scully," he frowned, "he 'sells sleep'? That doesn't sound shady to you? Give me one context in which that is an innocent declaration on anyone's part."

She shifted. "Maybe, it was just some wacky attempt to sound original while picking someone up at a bar."

"He didn't strike me as a man who has to work hard for female attention. Didn't you notice all the women burning you alive with their stares?"

"Still," she took the token back from Mulder's fingers. "It's a huge leap to say he killed those women, who, by the way, don't seem to display an identifiable cause of death."

Mulder scratched his chin, thinking. "What if, and bear with me here, what if their deaths were a sacrificial offering?"

"What?"

"Think about it Scully," he said, growing excited. "You've had experience with occult homicides. The way that body was displayed, wrists up, doesn't that smack of ritualistic undertones?"

"Maybe, but—"

"And considering the many myths in folklore about how musical talent can be obtained…through darker channels—"

She turned and stared at him. "Mulder?" She arched her eyebrows. "Please tell me you're not trying to suggest Lenaghan sold his soul to the devil."

"Maybe one soul wasn't enough."

"Mulder!" She slumped back with an exasperated sigh. "Why do you always insist on making these fantastic reaches, when basic logic tells us two things: this," she held up the token, "is nothing but a lame attempt to seem mysterious, _and_ ," she raised her voice as Mulder tried to interrupt again, "Lenaghan was performing in front of a crowd every time a death in this case occurred—sometimes in another town."

"Scully, I'm not saying an actual deal with the devil was made—or that such a contract is even possible—I'm only saying that the ritualistic undertones of the crime-scenes may suggest the work of someone who imagined such a deal in the works."

Scully bit her lip. It was plausible; her own background in the field brought up precedents of misguided labors of occult murder. It _was_ plausible there was a more purposeful significance to the position of the body, apart from, or hand-in-hand with, the stark resemblance to _Ophelia_.

"As for his alibi," Mulder pointed across the lot at the blue pickup. "Doesn't it strike you curious that Lenaghan's aide sits the show out in the truck?"

The man with the short black hair leaned his wrist out the window again, ashing his cigarette onto the gravel.

Scully narrowed her eyes at the figure. The driver wasn't mentioned anywhere in the report of the FBI's interrogation of Lenaghan.

"Was he on the list of suspects?"

"Not to my knowledge," Mulder shook his head. "Which is odd—because I bet the aide's alibi would have been exactly this: the incriminating circumstance of waiting alone in parking lots outside of the bars where the women were last seen alive." Mulder leaned over the wheel and checked above. "Parking lots with no video cameras."

"That is… odd. Maybe Skinner simply didn't let you in on the fact that he was a prime suspect."

Mulder shrugged. "Maybe. Skinner seemed so frazzled about the case though—so nervous about the mother's pressure for answers and her cries of incompetence on the Bureau's part. I doubt he would have been so upset if he had a strong suspect like that driver there under his belt."

"So… What are you saying? They simply didn't think to question him?"

Mulder looked at her sideways. "I think that maybe… they just didn't see him."

"What?" She turned and paused, biting her lip. She hadn't seen the driver either. "Mulder, if you're basing that on what I said in the diner earlier, please remember that I'm very sleep-deprived this week. I just made a mistake. My mind slipped up… from exhaustion."

He nodded, still studying her carefully.

"Well, what now?" she asked.

"I'm going to circle around—drop you off at the motel and come back here to stake out the aide and Lenaghan."

"I want to stay," she protested.

"No, you—need some sleep."

* * *

Scully twirled the token between her fingers as she sat on the motel bed. It glittered in the low wash of the bedside lamp, the worn inscription catching some legible definition here and there, but not enough to make out the full words. The tin coin stared back at her, bleak and seemingly entirely un-valuable. Lenaghan's soft, slithering voice came back to her: _Put it under your pillow before you go to bed. If you like how you sleep, you can come to me again._

She felt silly—like a child about to try conjuring the Bloody Mary at her first sleep-over party. Every logical fiber of her being ridiculed what she was about to do. Yet, she had to admit, too, to a prickle of curiosity.

She slipped the coin under her pillow, shut off the lamp, and lay back. Twenty minutes went by in the fashion familiar to her nights as of late: her staring at the ceiling somewhere up in the darkness, no inclination toward sleep whatsoever, mind wandering and wide-awake. She was almost disappointed; some innocent part of her had wanted to believe this would work—just for the relief such a fantastic spell promised to bring her exhausted self.

Then, Scully registered a soft, vibrating pulse.

It was faint, almost indecipherable, and it sourced at the back of her head, humming rhythmically, though the pillow—through her brain it seemed. She moved to sit up and check if the coin was the source, but the pulse quickly moved down her neck, along her limbs, her legs, spreading a pleasant, kneading warmth. She felt her body grow limp, heavy, like it was sinking into a bath.

Her lids drooped.

* * *

 _She opened her eyes to a bright light, blinking against its gush._

 _Faint sounds registered around her—piano-playing somewhere far, far away, echoing toward her as if it was played in a house a block away. Just beside her, she heard the splash and ripple of water._

 _A fountain came into view against the sunlight._

 _Around it, a garden painted out, unfolding as though it was just a second ahead of the speed of her eyes adjusting._

 _She gasped when she saw it in full._

 _It was beautiful—surreally, exquisitely, almost painfully rich in color and fragrance, overwhelming her every sense. She could register every petal, every pistil and bobbing stem. She reached over and brushed a fingertip against a leaf, and it touched her skin, silk-soft, sending a pulse of pleasure and wonder to her very toes._

 _A voice, in the back of her mind it seemed, said "You're dreaming. This is a dream."_

" _I'm dreaming," she repeated, looking around._

 _I'm dreaming, she thought; the idea sent her into pure amazement. She knew she was dreaming, but the picture remained crystal clear. It seemed real—more real than reality: every detail was available to her, and she felt herself present, able to move through it freely, able to enjoy it for what it was: a waking dream._

 _A lucid dream…_

 _She looked around, breathless from the beauty of the sight. It held still under her eyes, supple and available—not at all like the harsh scramble of memories and information her brain usually regurgitated during its sleep cycle._

 _The garden breathed, alive with glittering colors. Things she could have never thought of displayed before her. Pink birds that folded their wings like flowers dipped in and out of a blossoming tree. The pebbles on the sand path under her feet caught a bright blue glint. Salamanders, camouflaged yellow and blue to match the sand, rested in the sunlight, their long bodies curving, so delicate and pretty._

 _Scully looked up the path._

 _A house sat ahead—a house with warm sand-colored walls and large windows. A long veranda wrapped its length toward the back. It looked pleasant, accommodating—like a vacation house._

 _Scully walked toward it._

 _It amazed her how she could feel everything—the scent of the flowers, the gentle breeze on her cheek, the warmth of the sand on her feet. It amazed her that she could register all of this, and yet the certainty never wavered: this was a dream. She experienced the logical and the fantastic in one wonderful phenomenon: knowing none of it was real, and… being able to brush her fingers along the polished cedar railing of the veranda._

 _She held still, soaking it all in. Her blood felt like it was pumping through her like honey—thick, warm, and so sweet. Her limbs moved when she wanted them to, and when she paused, they shivered, almost aching from the warmth of the air._

 _She heard a sound._

 _Scully turned and saw another figure on the veranda—at the far end, by the bend around the house._

" _Mulder," she chuckled, surprised._

 _He looked back at her. He looked just like himself—every detail of him in tact, down to the gray t-shirt and jeans he was wearing today._

 _He turned and walked out of sight, around the corner of the veranda._

 _Scully stared, and then she followed._

 _She rounded the house. The veranda stretched along the side, and out to the back, where the railing was wide, flowering vines twirling about columns. Out ahead, the view opened onto a lake. The water glittered, still and perfect, reflecting rushing pinks and cool minty greens on its surface. The water beckoned. It seemed so cool and refreshing._

 _Scully felt him step up behind her._

" _It's a beautiful lake, isn't it," Mulder said._

 _His voice—it was his voice, his scent even. Scully frowned. Something about it—something about Mulder being there. This wasn't how she'd dream of him. This wouldn't be what Mulder would say…_

 _He stepped closer behind her. She could feel everything, every moment._

 _His arm slipped around her waist, warm, familiar—but… tender, slow... caressing. Everything in her rushed._

" _Mulder, what are you doing?" she whispered, on reflex._

 _And again, the voice in the back of her head assured, "This is a dream. It's not really happening. Let go."_

 _Mulder's fingers brushed her stomach. He drew closer. Her heart sped up. She could feel everything; she could smell him, feel the warmth of his touch. Her blood pumped, slow, pulsing, drenching her to the core with pleasure._

" _Muld—" she began, still resisting._

 _His fingers brushed her neck, pulling back her hair, and then he pressed his lips to her skin._

 _A moan slipped out of her._

 _She felt them—his lips on her neck as he pulled her back, to his chest. He opened them wider and kissed her again, just under the ear. His lips traced up._

" _Scully," he whispered, his breath tickling her ear, sending her to madness with pleasure. "Scully,"_

" _What?" she breathed._

" _Scully—"_

* * *

Scully shot up in the motel bed.

She stared at the room, pulling her hair back from her forehead. A knock descended on the door.

"Scully," Mulder called, "Scully, you awake?"

"Yeah," she called back, trying to gather herself. "I'm up."

He opened the door and stepped in. "Skinner's on our ass for poking into his—" He paused, staring at her. "Are you alright? You look… flushed."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"I'm fine," Scully said, turning away from him and taking a deep breath. "I just—I had a weird dream, that's all."

"Oh?" He closed the motel door behind him and plopped down on a chair. "The painting of Ophelia again?"

She shook her head. Slowly, the heat on her cheeks subsided, but she didn't chance a direct look at Mulder in case it rushed up again.

"Did you sleep any better?" he asked, his tone uncertain.

"Actually…" She sat up, registering her own body: every muscle felt rested and limber; her mind was clear and sharp. For the first time in almost a week, she felt rejuvenated, replenished. "Actually, yes. I slept very well."

"So it worked?" He glanced at her pillow where she'd stashed the tin coin. "You used the token and it worked?"

She threw her legs over the bed's edge and brushed back her hair again. "It has to be a coincidence, Mulder," she said. "What did you say about Skinner?"

"Eh," he waved a hand. "The intern tipped him off to my snooping, and we have to come in for a stern review, I think. Skinner's probably set to put us on background checks as a show of discipline."

"A review? Today? It's Sunday."

"Tuesday morning, after the weekend's over. Today, I think you should go see Lenaghan again."

She took a deep breath and glanced around. Everything in her pulsed, ready and rested.

"Why?" she asked, still processing how good she felt.

He cleared his throat, glancing pointedly at her chest, and politely away.

"Oh," she looked down. She'd made a mess of her pajamas during her night, and the buttons had come undone, flashing the edges of her bra. "Jesus, Mulder, I'm sorry."

"No, it's, um," he bit down on his thumb to hide his smile, still looking politely in another direction. "It's quite alright."

"Why do you want me to go see Lenaghan?" she asked, buttoning up.

"Regardless of whether or not your change in sleep pattern last night was a coincidence, Lenaghan told you he _sold_ sleep, right?"

She nodded.

"Did he tell you what he charged?" Mulder faced her again when she was all covered-up.

She scoured through the conversation in her mind. "No, he didn't, Mulder… At the time, I assumed he was talking about drugs, and that he charged—you know, cash."

"Yet, he didn't ask you for money for the token? Or give you any future prices?"

"He told me the first one's on the house. That's all." Scully stared at Mulder. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking it's not money he charges, but I don't know what else it could be. I was hoping you'd find that out."

She nodded. It was an odd limb to venture out on, but she felt up, and energized, and it was Sunday; there was nothing else to do apart from driving back to DC, semi-empty-handed, to face Skinner's scolding next working hour. Privately, though she didn't want to admit it, Scully, too, wanted to see Lenaghan. He'd said 'If you like how you sleep, come see me again.' If it wasn't a coincidence, her dream, she was curious as to how it was produced exactly… and how it could occur again.

"Sure," she said. "Let's go."

* * *

"So, what did you get out of you stake-out last night?" she asked as they sped down a stretch of West Virginia road, past sparse gas stations, chain restaurants, housing developments, and a multitude of flags erected for Memorial Day tomorrow.

"Where he lives," Mulder said. "It's an apartment complex in the shabbier part of Canfield. The apartment manager told me this morning that he was riddled with transient, lawless tenants, but that Mr. Lenaghan was nothing but perfection—pays his rent on time, has no pets, and never makes noise."

"This morning?" Scully shifted to look at him. "Mulder, did _you_ get any sleep last night?"

He chuckled, tapping the lid of his tall coffee cup. "I'm fine. I stayed in the lot until _Arnold's_ closed at two in the morning. I watched Lenaghan leave the bar around two-fifteen." He glanced at Scully. "He was caught up declining a lot of offers on the part of a lot of women to continue the party elsewhere, if you know what I mean."

She remembered the women beating her down with acid stares. How they couldn't feel that repulsion she'd felt at the sound of his voice, she couldn't understand. "And?" she asked.

"He got into the truck," Mulder shrugged. "The aide—who'd remained outside, smoking, for the duration of the show, pulled out. I followed them to the complex where we're headed now. They exited the truck together, went up to the second floor of the building. I saw lights turn on in an apartment window. The lights turned off not ten minutes later, and... That was it."

She frowned. "They live together?"

Mulder opened his mouth and closed it again. "Honestly, I'm not sure. I waited for a full half hour for the aide to come back out, and he didn't. So, maybe they do. The apartment manager, though, didn't know what I was talking about when I asked about the man. He claimed Lenaghan lives alone."

"Even though he's blind?"

Mulder shook his head like he couldn't piece it together either. "The manager knows Lenaghan's blind, but doesn't seem to know much else. When I asked him about who drives Lenaghan to and from whatever errands, the manager simply told me he always assumed it was some government-assigned disability aide. He said he'd never bothered to pay attention."

Scully nodded, thinking. It was curious: she and many other people, it seemed, didn't notice the driver.

Mulder leaned his foot on the brake as they came to an intersection decorated with a check-cashing venue, a mechanic shop walled off with a chain-link fence, and a closed-up pain-management clinic with left-over letters on the awning: DR. M—RAK—OF—CE. An apartment building towered beyond the roofs, and Mulder swung a left toward it. A few men smoking outside of the mechanic shop traced the agents' vehicle, their eyes lingering mostly on the frame and mark of Scully's car, and then they looked away, disinterested, resuming their conversation.

"One odd thing," Mulder said as they pulled into the apartment lot.

"What's that?"

"The aide, Scully." He parked a distance away from the building. "I saw what he wore when he got out here alongside Lenaghan: scrubs. They were green, just like the scrubs you wear when you do autopsies."

She frowned. "And? If he's in health-care at all… I mean, scrubs are just scrubs, Mulder."

"Why would he wear them while he's driving a truck back and forth? And what sort of health-care professional chain-smokes?"

She shrugged and sighed, trying to process everything. "I don't know…"

"The apartment number I got from the manager is 19, on the second floor." He nudged her out of the car. "I'll be here."

* * *

Scully walked up a flight of stairs. The space was open, as it tended to be in complexes built in states with constantly warm weather: the back-stairwell was exposed to outside air. A young woman lunged out of the second story and sprinted the steps, looking down, and plummeting into Scully's shoulder on accident.

"Sorry," she twirled about.

Scully gaged her; the girl had bleached hair, greasy, with dark roots that had been untended for months: several inches of chestnut. She wore a stained t-shirt that was torn at the shoulder, and she scratched her arm with a reflexive tick: a junkie, Scully's mind said with cold judgment, an addict.

The young woman zeroed in on Scully herself. "He's not in," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Don't even bother."

The girl turned and rushed down toward the parking lot.

Scully watched her disappear. It had to be a mistake; the girl probably meant someone else in the building—her dealer most likely. Scully turned back and walked up to the second floor. She walked the balcony until the door came into view, and knocked bellow the brass numbers 19.

Nothing.

She knocked again, harder.

A sound trickled from the apartment, foot steps, and then Lenaghan swung the door open. "I told you—I'm sleeping."

He faltered. He didn't look at Scully; he faced ahead, at the space behind her shoulder. "Oh," he said. "I'm sorry. I… Dana, right? Is it Dana?" He stared behind her, his gray eyes never moving.

She swallowed. His voice—it wasn't what she remembered. It was a normal voice. It was laced with exhaustion and a sharp quality belonging to someone who didn't take care of himself, but it was a warm, ordinary voice.

"Yes, Hi," she said, glancing over his features. His curling mane billowed about him, frazzled. He looked tired. He stared over her shoulder with a milky quality to his gray irises, only listening, not looking. "You said to come see you?" she managed.

"Right," he nodded and rubbed his forehead with his fingers. "Right," he sighed again. "Come on in."

He stepped away from the door, leaving it wide-open. Scully peered in, unclipping her holster, just in case. There was no sign of anyone else in the apartment. The space, made dim by drawn curtains, only revealed left-over take-out containers piled on a coffee-table. Lenaghan slumped onto the living room couch and gestured toward the arm-chair across from him, still facing dead ahead. Scully stepped in.

"Good sleep?" he asked, in an absent fashion as Scully settled across the coffee-table.

"Yes." She bit her lip as she registered the wall behind Lenaghan's couch. A large replica of a painting hung behind him: the painting of _Ophelia._

Lenaghan grunted, shifting. "I'm sorry to do this, but I'm so tired, and I just… I'm going to have to give you the run-down basics without fanfare. If you're in, you're in. If you're coy about it, and you just came here because you were simply curious, I—I can't do that today. I can't… sell you on it, you understand?"

"On what?" she tore her eyes off the painting.

He sighed, rubbing his face with both hands. "The… dreams," he muttered, facing the space behind her with dead gray eyes.

"I…" Scully cleared her throat. "Did that painting come with your apartment?"

Lenaghan tensed, seeming to pay attention for the first time. He cocked his head, dipping toward Scully's voice. "Ophelia?" he asked softly.

She nodded, and when he didn't show sign of registering her movement, she said, "Yes."

Lenaghan smiled. Again, the smile was not what Scully remembered—not the hollowed out grin, but rather a blushing, surprised, soft smile. "That was Janet's favorite," he said. "The painting behind me—she made it herself, as an homage to the original."

Scully frowned. "Who's Janet?"

He leaned back, still smiling that warm smile. "Janet, my fiancé." He reached over and traced his fingertips along the varnished swirls of brush strokes. He didn't look at the painting, he only traced it as if he could remember every detail—traced his index finger along the wrist of Ophelia.

"Incapable of her own distress," Lenaghan quoted. "…Her clothes spread wide, and mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up… And then," he swallowed, pulling his fingertips off the painting and running them through his hair instead, as he turned back to Scully.

Scully stared at him, as he stared behind her, seeing nothing registering in his eyes.

He rolled his shoulders, getting back to business.

"The dreams, Miss Dana. They come with a price."

She leaned forward. "Which is?"

He sighed. "A procedure—nothing physical: in-dream. You'll just have to go through a bit of a nightmare next time, if you want to continue with this… and you most certainly don't have to continue." He moved as though he was trying to find her in his gaze, but his eyes remained blank, and their reach stretched out beyond her shoulder.

"What sort of procedure?" she asked.

He sighed again, rubbing his forehead. "You'll have a quick nightmare before your next visit. It's imperative—if you want the dreams to continue—that you not wake up," he began, saying the words like they were a practiced phone-greeting. "You'll have two options: if you say that you want to wake up, or even if you just scream or holler, you'll find yourself awake, and our business here will be done. No hard feelings." Lenaghan shifted, tossing his hair back, reciting the rules. "If you think you can handle the short nightmare, you'll have to remain silent. If you feel yourself in need of crying out, the only words you can say to remain within the dream are,"

Lenaghan looked up, his dead eyes still facing the wall behind Scully.

"Cogi Qui Potest Nescit Mori," he said.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"A procedure?" Mulder frowned.

Scully leaned back against the felt of the passenger's seat, staring at the apartment building where she had just left Lenaghan. The image of Ophelia—the image of the painting behind a clearly blind man whose voice was no longer the spine-prickling slither she remembered from the bar—flashed stark across her mind.

"That's what he charges for the dreams?" Mulder pressed.

She shrugged. "That's what he said."

"What does that mean?"

She shrugged again. Lenaghan's coin was in the front pocket of her jeans, and she traced her fingers over it across the denim.

"He, um," she tore her eyes off the apartment complex to meet Mulder's stare. "He mentioned a fiancé—Janet. That's… That could be something to look into."

Mulder nodded, his gaze still on Scully, confused and gaging. "What sort of procedure?" he insisted.

"Mulder, I don't know." She arched up against her seat. "None of this makes any sense to me."

He narrowed his eyes and glanced at the building. "Let's go back to the motel." He revved the engine. "I'll place some calls. I've already got my hands on the numbers of some of his former faculty members—retired Julliard professors who'd given him their best recommendations before he rejected the scene."

He pulled out of the shady side of Canfield.

* * *

"Yes, is this Mrs. Williams?" Mulder said into the corded motel phone. "My name is Fox. I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about a former student of yours."

Scully sat down on his still-made bed as he paused, listening to the response.

"Oh, your mother," Mulder said. "I apologize. Do you have her direct phone number available by any chance?"

Scully arched back against the stiff pillows and plucked the tin token out of her pocket. She twirled it between her fingers, letting the glint of sparse light between the drawn blinds catch the rubbed-off inscription. She focused on the faded lettering.

"Oh, I'm so sorry for your loss," Mulder spoke into the receiver. "Two years? I apologize… Really… Cancer… That sudden?... I'm so sorry…"

Scully studied closer the letters on the coin.

Mulder sighed against the phone. "Again, I apologize. She seemed like such a wonderful woman… Yes, I'm sure… You take care now."

He hung up, flipped a page on his notepad, and dialed another number.

" _Cogi Qui Potest Nescit Mori_ ," she said softly.

"Hm?" Mulder arched back toward her, the receiver pinched between his ear and shoulder.

"The inscription," she stretched the token toward Mulder. "That's what it says."

He frowned and narrowed his eyes at the coin as he plucked it from Scully's fingers. "What was it?"

"Cogi Qui—"

"Yes, Hello?" He stretched the coin back to Scully. "Is this Andrew Boyd?" Mulder turned away.

She sighed, twirling the tin token between her fingers.

"Mr. Boyd, yes, hello," he perked up on the other side of the bed. "My name is Fox Mulder. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about a former student of yours."

Scully traced the worn bumps on the coin's surface, thinking about the painting of Ophelia.

"Maurice Lenaghan," Mulder said into the receiver, his back turned. "Yes… Yes… Oh, of course—very talented. I saw him perform at a piano bar last night… Yes, a piano bar… Yes, I know he belongs at a better venue…"

Scully sighed and stared at the swirls of plaster on the ceiling above. They reminded her of the brush strokes on the painting in Lenaghan's apartment. She inched back deeper into the pillows.

"You don't say," Mulder said, still not paying her any attention. "Was it really under your tutelage? That piece was exquisite…"

She slipped her hand back and placed the coin underneath the pillow.

"You don't say… I was wondering if you could give me a little more bio—I'm piecing together a newspaper article—your name should be mentioned, of course…"

His voice faded away as the pulse surged through Scully again. She blinked, wondering if she should resist it, but then it washed over her, kneading all her muscles.

She closed her eyes.

* * *

 _She opened them to bright light again._

 _The splashing sound of the fountain was close, and the music of a piano could be heard in the distance, just as before._

 _Scully smiled. She knew she was dreaming. She knew it, and she couldn't wait. It was about to be pleasure—pure honey pleasure; she couldn't wait to see the garden again. She wanted to see all the beauty—feel it again, on her fingertips, along her cheeks on the breeze._

 _She urged her eyes to adjust faster._

 _She blinked and found herself in a small space—a curtain drawn about her as though she was in a hospital._

 _A man in green scrubs walked through the curtain split. Scully could hear the fountain and the chirrup of the garden just beyond the barrier, but all sight of the beauty was walled-off. She looked up at the man._

 _She couldn't see his face._

 _He had short black hair, but his face—it flickered, as though he was moving it side to side in rapid tempo, and Scully's eyes couldn't catch up: his features were a blur._

" _You're dreaming," he said, in a friendly way, almost like a doctor telling her she was awake._

 _The man plucked up a tool from a short table beside her._

 _Scully frowned, zeroing-in on the object—it was a razor, glittering sharp._

" _Pull up your shirt, please," the man said, his head ever-flickering, ever-indecipherable._

 _Lenaghan's instructions came back to her: a procedure… No crying out loud. No waking up if she wanted to see the garden._

 _Scully dipped her fingers against the edge of her navy t-shirt and inched it up._

" _That's enough," the man said with an easy tone. "Just above the navel. Thank you, dear."_

 _And he pressed the razor to her skin._

 _Scully lurched, every instinct in her wanting to scream. The razor was cold—its edge sharp—she could feel everything._

 _The man paused and looked up. His face was a flashing mess: a face that darted back and forth, features illegible._ _He hesitated, waiting, blade pressed to Scully's skin._

 _The instructions were clear._

 _She swallowed. It's just a dream, she reminded herself. It's not really happening. She wanted to see the garden._

" _Go ahead," she breathed._

 _The man bent back down and slid the razor into the skin above her navel._

 _Scully bit her lip. She wanted to scream—she wanted to cry out so bad._ _She looked up to keep from seeing what was happening, and glanced back down because that was worse somehow._

 _The man pulled back a fold of her skin and reached his fingers into her navel, pulling on... something._

 _It was too much… too much…_

 _She bit her lip, panting._

 _He pulled—a string. A red string. He pulled it out of her navel, stretching it out of her._

" _Cogi," she breathed. "Cogi Qui Potest Nescit Mori."_

 _The man with the short black hair and no face pulled the red string out of her navel._

" _Cogi Qui Potest Nescit Mori."_

 _He measured. He measured six inches. He cut it off and—_

 _He walked away with it._

 _The curtain vanished._

 _Scully faced the garden. It was just as beautiful as before. She gasped and checked her stomach. No scar, no mark—it was over. She stepped forward and brushed her fingertips against the billowing flowers, honey pleasure and wonder soaking through her every cell._


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

 _She was dreaming._

 _She knew she was dreaming, and that fact made the beauty around her only so much sweeter: it wasn't real, so she was free to enjoy it without care, without worry, without even the need to identify or categorize it by any logical faculty of her mind._

 _Scully walked through the garden, relishing everything, taking her time._

 _She watched the pink birds that looked just like flowers flutter their feathers, and the sight filled her with wonder and joy. She leaned down and ran her palm along the yellow sand, the pebbles of which glittered with blue. The pebbles slid along her skin, warm and soft. A breeze played with her hair. The sun sparkled through the fountain spray like stars in the daylight. Scully looked up the path._

 _The vacation house stood as before: wide, open, clean and inviting. Its veranda wrapped around under the still golden light. Her heart sped up. If it was the same dream, Mulder would be on that veranda—not the real Mulder, but a fictitious resurrection of Mulder who looked, smelled, and felt like he was real. Scully felt embarrassed by her eagerness, and the longing to feel those lips on her neck again, but—if it was just a dream…what was the harm?_

 _She walked up the path, and up the cedar steps onto the veranda._

 _He stood by the corner, just as before, in a gray t-shirt and jeans, just as before. He looked at her and turned to circle the house. Scully followed._

 _Again, the back view opened out onto a still, sparkling lake._

 _Scully walked up to the railing where the blossoming vines twirled around the columns. He stepped up behind her._

" _It's a beautiful lake, isn't it?" he whispered._

 _Her breathing quickened. She knew what would come next. The anticipation alone sent toe-curling pleasure though her._

 _His arm wrapped around her waist._

 _She didn't protest or question this time; she knew this was just a dream—it wasn't real. She only worried that she would miss even a moment, wanting to register and feel everything. She only worried it would be over too soon._

 _His hand lingered on her stomach, caressing it, pulling her back against his chest. It was so warm, so like his. His fingertips brushed back her hair off her neck._

 _Scully held still, breathing fast, her heart pumping, her body aching from the want—the want of those lips that were about to descend onto her skin._

" _Scully," he whispered._

 _She bit her lip, not wanting to answer—not wanting to interrupt. His breath was close, his lips a breath away from her neck._

" _Scully," he whispered again._

 _He was so close to her. Her body groaned, wanting so badly._

" _Scully,"_

 _She shook her head. "No, wait—don't say anything. Wait—"_

* * *

"Scully!" Mulder shook her shoulder.

She sat up on his motel bed. "Damn it, Mul—" The curse flew out of her, and she bit her lip, forcing it down.

Mulder stared at her with wide concerned eyes. "Jesus, are you alright?"

She could feel the blush hot on her face.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. A weird, almost comical, guilt rushed through her: the realization that she had been… fooling around with him… without his knowledge. It was a ridiculous indiscretion to prosecute, but that didn't change the fact that she could barely meet his gaze.

"Scully?" he leaned toward her. "What happens to you exactly when you're dreaming with that token under your pillow?"

She cleared her throat, pressing her palms to her burning cheeks. Jesus, had she done something—moaned, or… said something? She glanced at him sideways, checking his expression. Mulder only looked worried—scared even.

"I have… lucid dreams, Mulder," she said carefully.

He frowned. "You know that you're dreaming and can control it?"

She shifted. "I can't control it, but I know that I'm dreaming the whole time. And I'm… aware of everything—almost more aware than I am when I'm awake."

He nodded, still frowning. "What are the dreams of?"

She bit her lip. "A garden," she said. "Just a—very beautiful garden."

He glanced at her pillow, still seeming unconvinced. "What about the procedure? The cost of the dreams?"

That memory, if nothing else, cooled the rush on her cheeks. She swallowed. "It's a short nightmare. A man in green scrubs cut a string out of my stomach."

"What?" Mulder leaned closer, looking over her face with that same scared worry. "Lenaghan's driver?"

"Well, no," she slumped, confused. "It's just a dream, Mulder. It's not _actually_ him."

Again, he seemed unconvinced. "Scully, are you alright? Are you feeling alright? Medically-speaking, would you say your vitals are… all good?" His voice hurried, so concerned still.

"Yes," she frowned. She was feeling rejuvenated and rested just as before. If anything, she was just a little irritated that dream ended so quickly—before she'd had a chance to feel his—"Why do you ask?" she asked to drag her mind off the memory of his lips drawing closer.

"You…Scully, you fell asleep two hours ago. I looked over, saw you sleeping, breathing slow, and I figured you were just catching up on your rest." Mulder glanced over her again. "I was on the phone, with the Julliard retirees, and when I finally turned back to check up on you just now, you—you were panting like you had a fever, and you'd raised your wrists up." Mulder bit his lip. "Just like the women in the crime-scene photos."

A chill ran down her spine. "I did what?"

"Your wrists—you had turned them up and held them beside you."

She shook her head. "That's—Mulder, that's probably nothing. People move in their sleep all the time."

"Right," he nodded and glanced at her pillow again. "Maybe, for the time being, while we're piecing this thing together, maybe you shouldn't use that token anymore."

He moved toward her pillow, and she lunged to grab the coin before he did. It was on reflex—a reflex, she realized, that was not unlike that of an addict seeing their drug removed from their presence. She faltered, clutching the tin coin. Mulder stared at her, surprised by her defensive reaction.

It couldn't be that, she assured herself: it couldn't be that she couldn't let the thing go. She just wanted a little more time with it—just a little bit more time.

"I won't use it," she nodded.

"Okay," he said carefully, watching her closely, "So why don't you let me hang onto it, Scully?"

She'd already slipped the token into her front pocket. "Yeah," she said. "Later… Tell me about the phone calls. Did you find out more about Lenaghan?"

He narrowed his eyes, studying her, gaging her. She could almost feel him thinking. She bit her lip.

"Actually," Mulder pulled away, "I found out a few interesting facts."

A sigh of relief all but slipped out of her: he was going to drop the matter of her keeping the token.

Mulder didn't quite sound like he'd let it go, but he didn't press either.

"Between the reminiscing of several of Lenaghan's former professors, I put together quite a bio of his school years. They all mentioned Janet, too."

"His fiancé? Where is she now?"

Mulder studied the notes, scratching his chin. His expression was somber. "Janet Clemons was a girl Maurice Lenaghan grew up with in Illinois—their families lived a block from each other. Janet and Maurice were best friends throughout childhood; they dated throughout high-school, and they moved to New York together. They attended separate colleges; Janet studied Fine Art at Pratt Institute. At that point, though, they were already engaged."

Scully scooted closer, peering at Mulder's notes.

"All the faculty members said one identical thing: Janet and Maurice were inseparable. They were together any and every time they could be. They opted out of campus housing and shared an apartment they paid for with part-time jobs. She painted, and he played the piano—they were an artistic duo, both highly regarded by their faculties." He paused.

"And? Where is Janet Clemons now?"

"She was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of twenty-one—out of the blue; the girl had been healthy and active her whole life, and the diagnosis came down like a curtain call. She fainted in class one morning, and couldn't find strength to move when she woke up. They rushed her to the hospital, and upon blood analysis, found her disease quite progressed.

"She succumbed within a year, Scully," Mulder sighed. "Died in May, right before her graduation ceremony."

Scully winced, her throat lurching.

"Lenaghan," Mulder went on, his voice bleak, "attempted suicide immediately after the funeral. He swallowed a large amount of Oxycontin he'd palmed off a drug-dealer, and was found unconscious in his bathtub by his landlord on a coincidental fire-alarm inspection which saved his life. Lenaghan had his stomach pumped and was on detox for two days. His parents couldn't be called because they had both died in a driving accident three years before that, and no other relative was available, so it was actually Professor Boyd who went to collect him from the hospital."

Mulder glanced at Scully as she hung onto every word.

"Mr. Boyd told me that Lenaghan woke up blind. The doctors couldn't make head or tail of it—couldn't understand how that could be a result of his overdose. Lenaghan, himself, Boyd insisted, seemed unperturbed—like he knew he was going to wake up blind. He refused his teacher's offer to drive him home, and left instead with a friend."

"A friend? Which friend?"

Mulder tapped the pad of notes against his knee. "An older man, according to Mr. Boyd, with short black hair. A man wearing green scrubs."


End file.
